Treasured by a Tiger (Mate Me Book 6)

35

Preston hung up, but a nagging feeling pulled at him. Why would Caroline call him in the middle of the day? She usually sent him a text if she needed something. His phone rang again. This time it was Greyson. Okay, something was up.

"Greyson, is something wrong?"

"Caroline is safe. I wanted to check in with you if you spoke with Sherrif Ling?" Preston sighed in relief. Caroline wasn't in trouble, that was reassuring.

"Yes. Ling said he would have half a dozen plainclothes officers at the tea tomorrow when we spoke with Meade."

"Good. Caroline seems more on edge."

"Comes when someone is a threat. Also, she is planning a huge Mate Me event with Josie. Of course, she is on edge." Greyson gave a huff Preston assumed was a laugh.

"I'll let you get back to work." Greyson hung up and Preston pocketed his phone.

"Preston!" Nixon yelled from the top of the structure. They were putting the support beams up. He hoped to have the roof done soon.

"Coming." He hurried over to help with attaching the ropes to the supports for the crane to pull the heavy wood to the top. Preston lost track of time and before he realized it, his alarm was going off to go get Liam from school. Fuck! He wasn't at a stopping point. With a groan, he called Caroline.

"Preston!" Her voice sounded frantic.

"What's wrong?"

"You were supposed to call me back!"

"Fuck! I'm sorry. We're putting the supports up for the roof. I hate to ask, but can you get Liam? We can't stop for the night yet." Her sigh on the other end of the phone told him she was a little irritated with him.

"Fine." She hung up, and he cursed.

"We need to get this done now. My mate is pissed and I need to grovel," he told his foreman. Frederick laughed, slapping him on the shoulder.

"My guess, is we've got about an hour's work left. Think you can handle that, boss man?" Preston growled at Frederick but said nothing back. It was his own fault Caroline was mad at him. He promised to call her back and didn't. He promised to pick Liam up from school and couldn't. When he got home, he would make dinner and tell her to put her feet up. She was busy with the inn and deserved a partner in life. Preston's phone rang again, and he looked down to see Cody calling.

"Hey, Sheriff."

"I wanted to let you know the FBI has taken over this case. We will support them through local means."

"How?"

"When I did some digging, it triggered a warning. I contacted the FBI to make sure we were doing everything right. Turns out they've been looking for Reynolds and Peters. Meade is on their watch list." Preston sighed and turned away from his crew to move to a quieter place.

"Are they going to want to talk to Caroline?"

"Yes. I asked them to let us have this meeting with Meade to see if we can pull Reynolds and Peters out of the woods for them."

"Okay. I'll talk to Caroline tonight about everything. Did you give them the diary entries?"

"Yes. The most they can do with this, though, is speculate about what they were doing. We need hard evidence that Reynolds, Peters, and Meade were arms dealing with the enemy."

"Damn. I don't want these guys in out of town."

"Same. The FBI has concrete evidence against Peters. They are trying to get Reynolds and Meade. Call me as soon as you talk to Caroline. I want to get this settled and off my caseload ASAP."

"Will do. Thanks for letting me know." Preston hung up and looked back at his crew. He wanted to get home now. Caroline was going to be upset because she didn't want to talk about Jonas anymore. He knew it bothered her, and she wanted to move on with her life. Checking his phone, he saw she'd sent him a text saying she was on her way to pick up Liam and he wanted to do pizza for dinner and a movie as a celebration for making it through the school week. Preston texted back.

I'm all in for pizza. I should be done in about an hour. The crew fell behind when one of my guys got hurt. It wouldn't do for Georgia and Jordan to be out of their home too long. If my guess is correct, we should be done in two more months. He tucked his phone away and went back to help. The sooner he got Georgia and Jordan back in their home, the sooner he could propose to Caroline and plan a wedding. He needed to ask Liam's permission and take him ring shopping before he could ask Caroline. Even though they mated, he didn't want Liam to have no say in who his mom married. After this build, Preston wanted to step back from manual labor and be there for Caroline and Liam more.

"Preston, come look at this!" Nixon yelled, drawing his attention to the men on the roof.

"What's wrong?"

"Look at this." Nixon showed him the pile of supports showing nicks in all the weight-bearing points.

"Fuck, are they all like this?"

"Not on the first two, but the rest of them are all useless. We can't use them if we want the addition to be safe for the family."

"You are right. We will need to remake these. Let's use my workshop and lock them away until the day we need them. This is going to push us back a couple of days because it takes a day and a half to build before we put them up. Tarp the top of the house. We are supposed to get rain in a few days." Preston swore mentally. This is not what he wanted. It meant spending more time away from Liam and Caroline. This was too suspicious for him to think some kids were causing problems. This had to be Reynolds and Peters.